Rob Roth wins EMS poster competition

p>GeoVISTA Graduate Associate Rob Roth took first place in the annual College
of Earth and Mineral Sciences Graduate Student Poster Exhibition with his poster,
"Using the AutoPASS method to determine the optimal lands for reforestation
in the Baraboo Hills Forest of Southcental Wisconsin."

Rob's research attempts to formalize an automated and cost-efficient method
for the selection of restoration sites and was completed in collaboration with
Professor A-Xing Zhu of UW-Madison and students Jesse Papez and Eric Holbus.
Their particular case study looked at a reforestation project in the Baraboo
Hills Forest of southcentral Wisconsin undertaken by The Nature Conservancy
(TNC). The targeted species for protection were deemed 'edge-sensitive' due
to increased competition, predation, and parasitism that occurs along the patch
edges. Such edge-sensitivity further reduces the available habitat and increases
the degree of patch fragmentation. Because of this, the goal of the restoration
project was to add interior area, not total area, and further, to add a positively
disproportionate amount of interior area compared to the actual area reforested.
The team tackled this as a problem of shape, as the minimization of perimeter
along with the maximization of area produces a patch with an increasing percentage
of its area in the interior. Using convolution, they generated a local analysis
that ranked or prioritized each potential restoration site (deemed to be one
acre of area by TNC) based on its ability to both decrease perimeter and increase
area. In the application of the method (which we lovingly named AutoPASS - AUTOmated
Patch Analysis for Site Selection) on the Baraboo Hills Forest, we identified
950 acres of land as high priority for restoration, as collectively they would
produce 2,227 new acres of interior forest (a 57% return on the investment).
Such a method provides a quick, automated approach to the selection of sites
for restoration that optimizes the allocation of resources for a restoration
project.